"I can't eat anything. Without all the proper tubes in my belly, the food would simply rot in any case. I can drink a little, which means that I will die of starvation a few weeks from now instead of from thirst a few days from now. Unless, of course, an infection takes me first, which seems likely."
Ehren blinked several times at that. "Y-your Highness. I'm sorry, I didn't realize."
"There's hardly a need for you to apologize, Cursor. Life ends. You can hardly blame yourself for that."
Ehren regarded him for a moment, then lowered his eyes and nodded. "Yes, Your Highness. Are... are you in pain?"
Attis shook his head. "I am managing it for now."
"Maybe you should rest."
"I'll have a vast surplus of rest, presently. For now, I have a duty to perform."
"Your Highness," Ehren protested. "You are in no condition - "
Attis waved a dismissive hand. "I am in no condition to fight. But in a conflict of this scale, I will contribute the most to our cause by coordinating the efforts of others and determining sound courses of action. I can do that very nearly as well from this wagon as I can from my horse."
Ehren frowned and glanced up at Lady Placida.
She shrugged one shoulder. "Provided his thoughts remain clear, I believe he is correct. He's the best we have when it comes to tactical and strategic decisions, his staff are already in place, and his structure and methods are already established. We should use him."
Are you sure you didn't mean, "use him up," Your Grace? Ehren thought. There is little love lost between you.
Not that Ehren had any right to be casting stones. He inhaled deeply and guarded his tongue. "I... see. Your Highness, Count and Countess Calderon came to me. They urgently request that you meet with them to discuss how best to utilize the Calderon Valley's defenses."
"No rest for the wicked," Attis murmured. "Yes, I suppose they're right. Please send them to me, Sir Ehren."
Ehren bowed his head. "As you wish."
One of the legionares in the rear guard collapsed when the long column of refugees and soldiers were within sight of the entrance to the Calderon Valley. Instantly, vord warriors rushed into the break in the Aleran defenses, not pausing to attack. They only pushed ahead, bringing ever more of their numbers into the weak point of the broken Aleran line.
Ehren realized what had happened when he heard refugees begin to scream.
He stood up on the wagon's seat and stared back behind them. They were currently moving up a gentle grade, and he could clearly see the mantislike warrior forms plunging left and right through the column, scythe-arms whipping about to sprinkle blood and death on the defenders. Horns called wildly. Legionares marching on the column's flanks formed up to engage the enemy.
The vord were not executing their typical, gruesomely enthusiastic assault. They never stopped moving, even when they struck a badly aimed blow. Casualties were far lighter than they might have been - but the sheer, screaming presence of the creatures among the refugees was doing something far more deadly. Terrified refugees scattered, racing for the shelter of the tree line.
Horns cried out in answer from the vanguard, and High Lord Phrygius turned his Legion in its tracks to begin marching double time back to the battle. An instant later, several forms leapt skyward from the command tent. Ehren thought he recognized the Placidas, old Cereus, and a figure that might well have been Countess Amara. The High Lords and Lady went west. The lone flier turned east, and shot off like an arrow from the bow.
"Rally!" Ehren cried. "Sound the rally here! Get those people out of the forest!"
The teamster on the cart fumbled with his bullhorn for a moment, then lifted it to his mouth and blew three long, surprisingly mellifluous notes, before pausing and repeating the process. The wagons immediately began hurrying to catch up with Ehren, forming into a double column to compact them into as little space as possible as the First Phrygian went by. Once they were clear, Ehren and his driver completed the maneuver, the carts peeling off from the road and forming an enormous circle, a makeshift fortress of dubious wooden walls.
Refugees had been repeatedly instructed how to react to a given horn signal, in the event of a moment just such as this. It had probably done a minimal amount of good. Even perfectly simple tasks were sometimes difficult or impossible under the conditions of an actual life-threatening situation. It was why soldiers trained and drilled endlessly - so that when they were numb with terror, they could, nonetheless, do everything they needed to do.
Once the wagons had stopped, the teamster sounded the rally call again on his horn. Some of the nearest refugees cried out and ran for the dubious shelter of the circled wagons. Others saw them and followed. Ehren supposed it was even possible that some of them had understood the signal. He saw dozens of the refugees who had run for the trees come running back. Some, but not all of them. Ehren shivered. Anyone who believed that the forest would provide any haven from the vord was going to be rudely surprised. He had already seen at least a dozen mantis warriors go gliding into the trees.
The Legions and the vord hammered at one another, while Citizens and vordknights streaked back and forth overhead in the rain. Drums rumbled, and men died. The Aleran order of battle had been swallowed by pure chaos, but the vord seemed to have no such difficulty. In absolute terms, the number of warriors they'd slipped through the gap in the Legion lines was not sizeable - but those vord, rushing wildly up and down through the column, had an effect on the Aleran troops entirely disproportionate to their numbers. They shrieked and rushed around, striking randomly as targets presented themselves, panicking men and animals alike.
So many horn signals were blowing that Ehren could not possibly tell one from another, the net result being a meaningless cacophony.
And then Ehren heard the drums.
He had never heard their like before - big, basso, ocean-deep drums whose voices rumbled so low that they were more felt than heard. But if the drums' voices were strange to him, their tone and rhythm were perfectly clear: Their voices were angry.
Perhaps thirty of the mantis warriors came rushing toward the circled wagons in a cohesive pack, following a trail of screaming refugees who ran in vain toward their fellows. The vord cut them down as they fled, despite the efforts of a mismatched group of horsemen from three different cities' Legions, who tried to force the vord off the Aleran civilians.
"Spears!" Ehren screamed, and teamsters and carters began tugging spears from their racks on the side of the wagon. They armed themselves, then started passing extras out to any refugee willing to fight, and the ring of wagons suddenly bristled with martial thorns.